As part of the PastPort project, we have been working closely with the Post Melbourne Historical and Preservation Society (PMHPS) to locate people and areas of interest, as well as sourcing a large range of material to use within the website. PMHPS run a terrific blog of their own looking at Port History which is well worth spending some time reading.

Another one of our favourite sites recently is 1945 Melbourne. Made by Nathaniel Jeffery, the site takes a 1945 Department of Crown Lands and Survey, and overlays it with a contemporary MapBox satellite map, allowing you to slide between the two.

We have just come across this recently digitised collection of street photography, covering Fitzroy and Castlemaine in the 1970s. The collection has been made available through the State Library of Victoria, with more suburbs and towns to be made available online when funds are available.

The site also features some fantastic ‘then and now’ photographs, which make for some interesting comparisons!

As part of the ‘Citizen Heritage’ ARC-funded research project, next year we are holding an international symposium in Melbourne: ‘Digital GLAM: Galleries, Libraries, Archives & Museums’ on July 14-15, 2016. The event will bring together cultural institutions, historians, heritage practitioners and digital designers. The symposium will be hosted in the Melbourne School of Design, at the University of Melbourne.

The symposium will provide a forum to discuss:

The projection of collections or other cultural artefacts into physical places beyond the traditional institutional reach;

New intersections in digital spaces between expert knowledge, curatorial practice and citizen-generated content;

Pathways and approaches to the design and development of new technologies;

Understanding and evaluating digital impacts and significance;

Critical reflections on the shaping of new digital identities for GLAM institutions.

At this stage, confirmed international and national speakers and institutions are:

We are currently inviting a number of other experts and practitioners in digital interaction design, and key GLAM institutions to join the event as speakers. So we expect to have a vibrant audience to make for a stimulating event and provide a valuable exchange of experience and knowledge in digital techniques within the GLAM network.

We will keep updating the site with more news as it comes, please look under the ‘Symposium’ tab for more. If you would like more information about the event, please get in touch with us at: